SASKATOON — University of Saskatchewan (USask) researchers from a variety of colleges and departments have received funding for projects through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grants program.
NSERC Discovery Grants are intended to award funding to creative and innovative long-term research programs in instalments over a period of five years. Below is the list of 36 USask researchers who received a total of more than $8.7 million in 2023 NSERC funding. In addition, seven researchers received a $12,500 supplement to start their projects as early-career researchers.
Professors Dr. Jafar Soltan (PhD) and Dr. Carey Simonson (PhD) have received funding from NSERC Discovery Grant program to further work into projects aiming to clean indoor air and make purification systems more efficient.
Engineering better active air filters for pollutants and pathogens
Soltan, a chemical and biological engineering professor and the associate dean of research and partnerships in the College of Engineering, has been studying air quality and removing chemical pollutants from the air for well over a decade.
But Soltan said the scope and focus of his work was both highlighted and changed by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The research project was started with the intent of removing chemical pollutants from the air, but pivoted to focus on viruses and bacteria.
Soltan’s current project explores the use of catalysts to clean airborne pathogens. Artificially polluted air is produced in a lab environment to track exact amounts of various pollutants in the air. By testing reactions with various catalysts and ozone gas to see how they inactivate airborne pollutants, Soltan is hoping to find an efficient, active physical filter to remove pathogens from the air.
“When COVID started, we switched the technology with the hope that we could address airborne pathogens, even a simple cold or flu,” he said. “We think these viruses that are floating in the air, if you can inactivate them with this technology, you can improve the health of the air as well as the quality.”
Soltan said the research could not have evolved the way it has without the support of interdisciplinary colleagues from USask’s College of Engineering and Department of Medicine, helping address the issues of viral and bacterial contaminants.
“Those collaborations are the difference between looking at a two-dimensional picture and a three-dimensional object,” Soltan said. “It is difficult, in a way, but the reward is much, much more than the difficulty because you have a better picture, a more realistic picture, and you get access to a lot of knowledge and facilities that your collaborator brings to the project.”
The project received $250,000 in funding from the NSERC Discovery Grant program, which awards funding to creative and innovative long-term research programs.
Soltan said because the NSERC program is peer-reviewed, receiving a Discovery Grant is a strong sign that the work being funded is both respected and appreciated by other researchers in the field.
“It’s confirmation of the quality of the work that we do,” he said. “Another aspect is the flexibility that the Discovery Grant brings in, because it allows you to follow your discovery, your curiosity. Once you see a better path, a better outcome, you can shift your research to explore that outcome.”
Improving energy efficiency of modern HVAC systems
Simonson, a professor of mechanical engineering and the newly appointed interim dean of the College of Engineering, received $295,000 for research into energy-efficient heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems.
Simonson’s research is multi-pronged, exploring various ways to improve the energy efficiency of buildings through improved HVAC systems, while still keeping indoor air clean.
“As we improve the energy efficiency of buildings, we still need to bring in fresh air,” he said. “That becomes a larger piece of the energy use in buildings, just providing fresh air, air we want to breathe.”
One aspect of the research project investigates heat and moisture exchangers connected to ventilation systems. These exchangers work to transfer energy from outgoing air to “precondition” incoming air.
Simonson said there are two common types of energy exchangers in commercial buildings: one where heat and moisture transfers through a membrane which separates the incoming and outgoing air, and another where a device stores and releases heat and moisture from the air. As he puts it, a key part of the research is exploring different materials in energy exchange to capture as much energy as possible from the outgoing air without capturing any contaminants along with it.
“We want to move into testing and even material modelling – how can we control those materials so they don’t transfer aerosols or gases and then release them,” Simonson said.
Another part of the Discovery Grant proposal aims to address the frosting of heat pumps for buildings. As emphasis continues to be placed on the decarbonization of energy, Simonson said effective heat pumps will become crucial for heating in cold-weather locations like Saskatchewan – so he and his team are exploring different materials to build frost-free heat pumps to operate efficiently through cold winters.
Like Soltan, this is not Simonson’s first NSERC Discovery Grant. Simonson also said the Discovery Grant is a great benefit for exploring new and important kinds of research and to provide a springboard to seek additional funding to continue this kind of research.
“The NSERC (Discovery Grant) opens doors and creates opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise exist,” Simonson said.
Other USask projects that received funding include:
Bill Biligetu
Plant Sciences – College of Agriculture and Bioresources
Uncovering salt-tolerance mechanisms in alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.)
$195,000
Asmahan AbuArish
Anatomy, Physiology and Pharmacology (APP) – College of Medicine
Deciphering the molecular basis of water transport in mammalian airway epithelium using quantitative confocal imaging
$200,000
Discovery Launch Supplement for Early Career Researchers recipient - $12,500
Justin Botterill
Anatomy, Physiology and Pharmacology (APP) – College of Medicine
A dentate gyrus circuit that regulates novelty, cognition, and affective behaviours
$165,000
Discovery Launch Supplement for Early Career Researchers recipient - $12,500
L. Dean Chapman
Anatomy, Physiology and Pharmacology (APP) – College of Medicine
X-Ray Optics for Synchrotron Biomedical Applications
$230,000
Yifei Dong
Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology (BMI) – College of Medicine
Understanding how macrophages respond to oxidized phosphatidylcholines
$165,000
Discovery Launch Supplement for Early Career Researchers recipient - $12,500
James Benson
Biology – College of Arts and Science
Modeling approaches towards improved cryopreservation
$225,000
Som Niyogi
Biology – College of Arts and Science
Physiological and neurobehavioural effects of trace elements in fish
$195,000
Nicole Webster
Biology – College of Arts and Science
Development and regulation of molluscan biomineralization: a morphological novelty
$165,000
Discovery Launch Supplement for Early Career Researchers recipient - $12,500
Mitch Weegman
Biology – College of Arts and Science
Unraveling demographic consequences of environmental drivers and individual decisions in migratory birds
$255,000
Yangdou Wei
Biology – College of Arts and Science
The Cellular and Molecular Basis of Penetration Resistance to Fungal Pathogens in Arabidopsis
$295,000
Ajay Dalai
Chemical and Biological Engineering – School of Environment and Sustainability
Applied Catalysis Research for Renewable Liquid Fuels and Light Olefins Production and Glycerol to Chemicals
$490,000
Jafar Soltan
Chemical and Biological Engineering – College of Engineering
Development of novel heterogeneous catalysts and processes for treatment of polluted indoor air
$250,000
Lope Tabil
Chemical and Biological Engineering – College of Engineering
Preprocessing, Pretreatment and Characterization of Biomass for Bioenergy and Bioproducts
$195,000
Michel Gravel
Chemistry – College of Arts and Science
Synthetic Studies on Medium-Sized and Large Annulenes
$260,000
David Palmer
Chemistry – College of Arts and Science
Enzyme catalysis: structure-function relationships, inhibition, and biocatalysis
$335,000
Grant Ferguson
Department of Civil, Geological and Environmental Engineering – School of Environment and Sustainability
Deep Groundwater and the Hydrologic Cycle
$250,000
Carl Gutwin
Department of Computer Science – College of Arts and Science
Improving User Performance and Expertise in Interactive Visual Workspaces
$345,000
Nathaniel Osgood
Department of Computer Science – College of Arts and Science
Stocking Hygeia’s Toolbox: Compositional Methods for Modeling Health & Infectious Disease
$205,000
Chanchal Roy
Department of Computer Science – College of Arts and Science
SciClone: A Scientific Workflow based approach for studying the change, similarity and redundancy in Software
$295,000
Safa Kasap
Electrical & Computer Engineering – College of Engineering
Amorphous Semiconductors for Optoelectronic Applications: Photodetectors & X-Ray Detectors Based on Multilayer Doped Selenium-Alloys
$295,000
Xiaodong Liang
Electrical & Computer Engineering – College of Engineering
A Multi-dimensional Framework for Distribution Grid Modernization
$295,000
Christopher Eskiw
Food and Bioproduct Sciences – College of Agriculture and Bioresources
Genome reorganization in response to cellular nutrients and nutrient sensing
$200,000
Yuanming Pan
Geological Sciences – College of Arts and Science
Trace elements and radiation-induced defects in minerals and Earth materials: From planetary evolution to sustainable development
$235,000
Carey Simonson
Mechanical Engineering – College of Engineering
Heat and moisture exchangers for energy-efficient buildings: frosting, fouling and contaminant transfer
$295,000
Wenjun Zhang
Mechanical Engineering – College of Engineering
Developing a Computational Design Approach for Soft Machines
$295,000
Angelica Lang
Canadian Centre for Rural and Agricultural Health – College of Medicine
Functional movement and scapular kinematics: exploring best practice methods from calibration to application
$165,000
Discovery Launch Supplement for Early Career Researchers recipient - $12,500
Janeen Loehr
Psychology and Health Studies – College of Arts and Science
The sense of agency in joint action: Cognitive and neural mechanisms
$295,000
Timothy Jardine
Toxicology Centre – School of Environment and Sustainability
Tracing the fluxes of low- and high-quality foodweb subsidies in freshwater ecosystems
$220,000
Yanping Li
Global Institute for Water Security – School of Environment and Sustainability
Canadian Prairie croplands and wetlands under a changing climate
$235,000
Saman Razavi
Global Institute for Water Security – School of Environment and Sustainability
Modelling and Management of Water Resources Systems Under Uncertainty
$250,000
Angela Bedard-Haughn
Soil Science – College of Agriculture and Bioresources
Pedogenesis and Predictive Soil Mapping in the Prairies
$175,000
Daniel MacPhee
Department of Veterinary Biomedical Sciences – Western College of Veterinary Medicine
The Importance of the Chaperome in Uterine Smooth Muscle Function during Pregnancy
$225,000
Baljit Singh
Department of Veterinary Biomedical Sciences – Western College of Veterinary Medicine
Mechanisms of Lung Inflammation: Biology of Pulmonary Intravascular Macrophages
$255,000
Janet Hill
Department of Veterinary Microbiology – Western College of Veterinary Medicine
Defining factors affecting population dynamics of closely related bacteria in microbial communities
$225,000
Sarah Wood
Department of Veterinary Pathology – Western College of Veterinary Medicine
Mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance of foulbrood bacteria in Canadian beekeeping operations
$200,000
Discovery Launch Supplement for Early Career Researchers recipient - $12,500
Neeraj Dhar
VIDO – College of Medicine
Single-cell analysis of two-component systems in Mycobacterium tuberculosis
$165,000
Discovery Launch Supplement for Early Career Researchers recipient - $12,500
— Submitted by USask Media Relations
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